Suppose that you want a character to put down an object. One technique is to do the animation in two parts. In the first part, you make the object the child of the figure's hand and animate the act of lowering the object to a table top or other surface. Then you substitute a copy of the object for the original one which is not a child of the character's hand. Start with scale=0 for the second copy so it cannot be seen while the object is being set down, then set scale=0 for the first object and set scale=100 for the copy. The object in the character's hand disappears and the stationary object appears.

Here is what I think is a better way. First set up a pose with the character holding the object as in this example:

Make the cup a child of the figure's hand. Now move to frame 30 and reposition the pose so the figure is setting the cup down, as in this picture:

The next step is to open the key-framing tool and select the cup. Lasso all of the frames for the cup and make every frame for the cup a keyframe. When that is done, open the object properties menu for the cup and reparent the cup to the ground so it is no longer a child of the figure's hand. When you play the animation, you will find the cup still moves with the figures hand.

In frame 60, repose the figure to an erect posture, as below.

When you play the animation, the cup moves with the hand down to the table, then remains in place when the figure straigthens up. The secret is key-framing the cups position for every frame before changing it's parent. Changing the parent of the cup from hand to ground causes poser to recalculate every position and orientation of the cup relative to the ground rather than the hand, and as long you do not change the motion of the figure, the cup still moves with the hand during the keyframes. When the figure straightens up, the cup remains stationary because it is not a child of the figure's hand.

Here is a flash version of the complete animation at 6 frames/second:

The process is reversible, so you can animate a character picking up an object. Set up the following three poses with the cup on the table and not parented to the hand:

Here is a flash version of the complete animation at 6 frames/second:

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